Christian Laettner - Early Life

Early Life

Laettner was born in Angola, New York to a blue-collar Catholic family. Although the Laettner name was German, his father George was of Polish descent. George had attended a Polish-American school, and his grandparents spoke Polish as their first language. The young Christian and his brother frequently worked as farm laborers to supplement their allowance.

Laettner attended Nichols School, where he played high school basketball. Although he received a financial aid package that paid a substantial part of his tuition at the exclusive prep school, his family had to sacrifice to send him there, and he also did janitorial work at the school to defray some of the cost. According to ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski,

He was, in all probability, the poorest student at the school and almost certainly the only one whose parents ordered his clothes from the Sears catalog, which was the one place they could find pants that fit his growing frame.

In his freshman year, Laettner once scored 67 points in a game. He set the school record for most points at Nichols by scoring over 2000 points in his career. During his career at Nichols, the school won two state titles and reached the state semifinals another time.

Laettner received his first recruiting letter, from nearby St. Bonaventure University, as a freshman. The following year, he became a national recruit, sought after by virtually every major Division I program. He first narrowed his list to 11 schools, and eventually decided he preferred the brand of basketball played in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). By his senior year, he decided he would make only three official visits—to Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia.